Life’s good. Never better. Friends, lots of them. Girlfriend, my first love. I’m high on life. Marks are roughly just above the toilet bowl, but you can’t have everything. I’m passing, though, so there’s at least that.
I’d even gained a nickname. One night, I found two girls scoping out Evan Macdonald’s room. I asked them what they were doing. They said, nothing. So, I pressed them. They said they liked his Oland’s Brewery mug and did I think he’s miss it if they took it? I told them that if they took that mug, I would hunt them down to the four corners of the earth and treat them to a thousand excruciatingly painful deaths. They ran out of the room, and upon seeing a friend of theirs, they pointed me out, and said, “Do you see that guy, he’s psycho!” Not much later that evening, no more than ten minutes, my whole floor gathered and calling me out in their loudest voices, as one screamed “PSYCHO!” It stuck, God help me. And in no time at all, even my classmates were calling me that.
It was an odd year, though; it was the year of the strike. Sudbury is a union town, and I was learning that strikes were not uncommon. When I moved into Res, I had no idea that the cleaning and support staff were on strike. I found out pretty quickly though. That first weekend was a hard, full-on party. Much beer was drank, and by the end of it, much beer was spilled, too. The floors were sticky and black with it, and we’d grown accustomed to wearing shoes to the shower, and hearing and feeling them stick and peel from the glaze that had hardened there. My first weekend was also odd in that it was the first time I’d showered in the stall next to a couple having sex. It was rather obvious that they were; in fact, I could hear them as I was entering the bathroom, throughout the shower, and as I toweled odd and left. That would not be the last time, either. The building had settled into smelling like a brewery, a distillery, an ashtray. After a week we took it upon ourselves to seek out cleaning supplies and swab the deck. Only to begin the process again that next weekend. Then came the city transit strike. We’d only just begun to figure out the bus routes and get good usage from our transit passes when they walked out. We began to make heavy use of cabs, piling in way beyond what the law allowed, each handing over a quarter for the fare when we arrived, there were so many jammed into it. The cops turned a blind eye to the infractions. Had they not, every cab driver in town would have lost his license. But glory be, the college stepped in and contracted a private bus company (school buses) to ferry us to and from school. So long as we were there on time, there was no cost to us; the drivers counted heads and billed the college direct. Then they too walked out. And we were back to cabs. Thankfully, that only lasted another week before the transit settled and went back to work. We were not done, yet. One week after the transit returned, the teachers went on strike for three and a half weeks. I went home, citing the need for a twelve-step program were I to stay. More than a few people dropped out of school during its tenure. Thankfully, Deb was not among them. But the duration of the teachers’ strike did not treat Evan Macdonald well. Evan was a drinker, quite fond of his native Cape Breton Island’s drink of choice: rum. On return, I discovered our mutual experimentation of cannabis had taken over his free time. Evan and I were always friends that year, but he’d found a new crowd after that. We returned to a beer strike. I don’t know what came over Sudbury, but the city was drank dry in a weekend. The bars scrambled to take up the slack, ordering vats of American Old Milwaukee and hard liquor. Northern Brewery wouldn’t sell to you beer unless you returned your empties. We countered with keg parties on the third floor. Then the grocery stores went on strike, on after another. When we thought all was said and done, the Sudbury Star finally settled their contract. We didn’t know that the city had a newspaper.
When one door closes, another opens. I was waiting for the bus one day when I noticed a familiar face. I thread my way through the crowd (there was about 200 students in residence, so there was always a crowd waiting for the bus), and came face to face with Henri Guenette. Remember Henri? I’d known him since Beginners swimming lessons; we’d been lifeguards and instructors together; he’d turned me on to D&D; we drank gallons of beer together. And then we just drifted apart about the time I went to college the year before.
“Holy crap!” I said. “What the fuck are you doing here? Who are you visiting?”
He was obviously as surprised to see me as I was him. “I live here,” he said.
“No way,” I said. “Where?”
“2nd floor.”
“I’m on 1st.”
We’d been to the same parties, and had not yet caught a glimpse of one another, until then.
Thereafter, when I wasn’t in Deb’s room, I was in Henri’s. Henri’s room was rather distinctive. His bed was notably higher than most. Beer cases lifted it feet above the ground, and as the year progressed, the bed rose even higher. One had to leap up. And reach down by the spring to turn the lights on and off. I’m surprised he never got vertigo. He did this for a reason. He wanted the best damn birthday party of his life. When the time came, four of us stacked all those cases into every available space of a vintage ‘70s station wagon and carted them back to the beer store, to redeem them for free beer. Everyone drank for free. There was a hidden cost. The next morning, Henri fell off bed. It was an altitude thing. Expecting the usual height, he didn’t get his feet under him as he slid off the bed, and fell flat.
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